Criminal Copyright Protection In The Digital Environment

The world has stepped into the knowledge economy age in the21st century with the integrated development of digital technology. In a digital environment intellectual property rights is suffering violations continuously. As a result, infringement of intellectual property crime is one of the most serious crimes in the United Nations mandated the17categories of transnational crime. There is no doubt that the protection of intellectual property rights under the digital environment has become an urgent problem of all countries. In this virtual world, the protection of intellectual property system has been unprecedented impact. Although in this great flood some of the measures of institutional and debugging have been released or are playing a role, but one of the defects and drawbacks are still difficult to conceal. In order to fulfill our obligations and Promises as Part of our commitment to the WTO, to Protect the owners of copyrights, maintain the administrative order of our country’s copyrights, as well as facilitating the healthy and rapid development of our economy,copyright protection has become an historic mission and obligation of our country. Digital technology has brought about new challenges to traditional copyright Protection. Base on background, a research of the Criminal Law of the copy right protection in the digital environment composed of analysis and discussion on a number of issues of criminal law protection of copyright in simple terms, is of great theoretical significance and practical value.This paper is divided into three chapters. The following are the brief introductions of each part.Chapter one:status and characteristics of the copyright crime under the digital environment. This chapter is to discriminate and explore related concepts, focusing on status and characteristics of the crime of copyright in the digital environment. Finally it highlights the features of copyright crime in the digital environment.We are facing a new era of "digital rights" In the21st century. This is a blessing, also it is unfortunate—the attribute of private rights of copyright curbs the scope and intensity of the online criminal protection. Kinds of copyright crime on the web infringement to the copyright criminal law protection system, which made a lot of new topics. The characteristics of copyright crimes under the digital environment are highly intelligent, highly covert, high-impact, which caused some difficulty in detecting. Copyrights were created to protect personal interest including financial gains to copyright owners and owners of neighboring rights. However, the law has also placed restrictions on copyrights to balance social and individual interests. A large number of network copyright infringement cases are using civil and administrative means to adjust, the due role of the criminal law has not been fully realized. The methods used in committing the crimes have also changed, causing substantial harm to society. Therefore, it’s urgent to improve the criminal law in theory and practice.Chapter two:elements of copyright crime in the digital environment. With the help of the traditional criminal law theory of four elements, this chapter conducts a thorough analysis on copyright crime in the digital environment. The first conclusion is that the Object of the Crime is a complex object. It violates national copyright management system as well as other people’s copyright and copyright-related rights and interests. Objective aspect of crime focuses on the replication and distribution, which, theorists have been doubts about and been repeatedly discussed in the "temporary copy" is the focus of discussion, the final conclusion for this behavior should not be included in the Criminal Law "Copy". For network service providers, end-user of the computer software to become the subject of copyright crime and assume that ultimately the issue of criminal responsibility, the points of situation reached a clear conclusion. about subjective aspects of the crime, this chapter focuses on advocating the relaxation of the element of "the purpose of profit", for the purpose of more effective protection of copyright in the digital environment. The subjective element is the direct intention of committing crimes for financial purposes. It is necessary to distinguish guilt from non-guilt. One crime from numerous crimes, this crime from that crime, and criminal conspiracy in judicial practice.Chapter three is about recommendation of the copyright in the digital environment protection. This chapter is based on the existing criminal law framework to fill a vacancy of the inadequacy of the criminal law protection of the digital environment, both legal inquiry and the analysis of the criminal justice system. This section makes a comparative study on copyright protection. It analyzes and compares systems between mainland China and international criminal law.First pointed out the inadequacy of the existing criminal law, followed by pointing out that China’s criminal law for the protection of copyright in the digital environment is absent in some aspect. It is concluded that the criminal law needs to consider the balance of interests under the premise of copyright crime in the digital environment and effective regulatory system. These practices include expanding the scope of protection, to give up the elements of purpose, improve the penal system, while drawing on the useful foreign-related legislation, judicial practice and do effective prevention and control of copyright crimes.